Hodel Ophir, a dance educator and researcher, received her Ph.D. in the Sociology of Education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is a lecturer at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and at the David Yellin College of Education. Her dissertation examining the work and experiences of dance teachers in Israel was published in Hebrew as a book co-authored by Yael (Yali) Nativ, titled Fractured Freedom: Body, Gender and Ideology in Dance Education in Israel (2016). Articles on her research have also been published in Israeli Sociology and Anthropology & Education Quarterly.

Ophir's current research, supported by the Pais Council for Culture and the Arts (2015) and the Spencer Foundation (2017), examines Palestinian dance teachers and choreographers in Israel, whose location Ophir describes as "dancing between cultures" as they negotiate the complex intersection of modern western and Arab traditional aesthetics and values. Ophir presented initial findings from this work at the 2015 Mellon Dance Studies in/and the Humanities Seminar at Northwestern University, and more recently at conferences in Israel and abroad. New publications of hers presenting her current work include an article in a special edited issue of The New East dedicated to women and gender in Middle Eastern spaces, and a book titled Choreographing Social Change – both in 2018.

Ophir's teaching and research interests include sociology and anthropology of dance and the body, sociology of education, gender studies and qualitative research methods.